Xref: utzoo sci.space:6775 sci.space.shuttle:1140
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dasys1!tneff
From: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)
Message-ID: <6185@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 31 Aug 88 21:43:56 GMT
References: <1988Aug16.040406.5434@utzoo.uucp> <6137@dasys1.UUCP> <1988Aug29.172104.10823@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Organization: Independent Users Guild
Lines: 41

In article <1988Aug29.172104.10823@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <6137@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>Excuse me, but are we really supposed to believe that omitting the
>>flight crew makes using the old SRBs an acceptable risk?
>
>Rationally, you have a point.  Congress is not rational.  Losing hardware
>is troublesome, but it would not be anything like the political disaster
>that more dead astronauts would be.

OK, but remember something else I said in the >> article: you don't
have to be sitting in the crew module to die in a Shuttle accident.
Wouldn't NATO airshows still have gotten the kibosh if all 3 pilots had
ejected safely at Ramstein?

>>Challenger is
>>every bit as "dead" as its crew, and we cannot afford to lose another
>>orbiter under any circumstances...
>
>Then we'll have to ground the shuttle permanently.  There is no way to
>fly it without risking loss of another orbiter.  The NRC report on
>shuttle frequency put it even more strongly:  if the shuttle continues
>flying, another orbiter *WILL* be lost eventually.

Yes, but the NRC doesn't really have any better basis for making a
statement like that, than NASA does for implying we won't lose one.
Sure, if we used the fleet for 30+ years and expanded it to 10
orbiters, losses would be inevitable.  They would also be easier to
take.  What we cannot afford to do is ace one of the remaining three
right now.  Playing games with unmanned flights for the sake of getting
some use out of the flawed-design SRBs strikes me as unwise.  (As your
AW&ST synopsis noted, I'm hardly alone.)  It would certainly tie up
Columbia for more months of retrofit downtime, for one thing.  And
it would introduce another untried component into the system.

If we must use the old SRBs, I say let's strap them onto an ELV core
and get some iron up there.  Our precious orbiter fleet, AND the people
who make them go, deserve only the safest hardware available.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)